ST. LOUIS — Another “don’t miss” is “Spotlight” if you like good movies. The Hollywood buzz is that it will be nominated for an Academy Award and I think it should be.

“Spotlight” is an intelligent film with excellent acting about an important topic. It is one of the most important newspaper movies since “All the President’s Men.”

“Spotlight” is a tense investigative thriller, tracing the steps to one of the biggest crime stories of the century. The film tells the true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world.

I viewed this movie at a critics screening at Landmark’s Hi-Pointe Theatre in St. Louis with several print journalists. They were amazed. They all reported that the movie depicted the way a real newsroom operates.

One gentleman had worked for the Boston Globe and knew two of the men portrayed in the film and he was astonished how well the actors captured their mannerisms and accents. He also said the set design was spot-on and looked exactly like the Globe. The sets and settings were authentic Boston. If they didn’t shoot the film in Boston, it sure looked like they did.

The screenwriters also handled the Catholic Church scandal in such a way that the film should not offend people who are members of the Catholic religion. The movie does not attack the Catholic Church’s tenets in any way, but looks only at the sexual abuse scandal uncovered by the reporters.

The Telegraph’s contributing movie critic Mary Cox lives in Wood River and is a member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association, who also occasionally writes about film-related topics, studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked in L.A. with various directors and industry professionals. She can be reached at [email protected] Visit Mary’s website at www.mlcwriter.com.

The Telegraph’s contributing movie critic Mary Cox lives in Wood River and is a member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association, who also occasionally writes about film-related topics, studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked in L.A. with various directors and industry professionals. She can be reached at [email protected] Visit Mary’s website at www.mlcwriter.com.